Macungie To Vote On Plan For 261 Homes

The Joint Planning Commission of Lehigh-Northampton Counties has reiterated its opinion that the proposed 261-unit Brookfield housing development in Macungie should have storm-water detention.

Engineers for the borough and the developer have advised against detention ponds. They claim it will be best to discharge storm water directly and quickly into the adjoining Swabia Creek before the creek reaches its peak storm flow. The storm water would come from theparking lots and roofs of the planned townhouse and apartment complex.

Two members of the borough's planning commission heeded the engineers' advice and recommended at the commission's meeting last month that the project be built without detention ponds or other methods of limiting storm-water runoff into the creek. Two other members of the commission were absent from the meeting, and the other member refrained from voting.

Borough Council, which has preliminarily approved the project without detention ponds, is to vote on final approval at its meeting 7:30 p.m. today.

In a March 26 letter to the borough, Christine Cleaver of the JPC said the issue is not only Brookfield storm water but the "potential cumulative impact" on creek flooding from Brookfield and other expected developments along the Swabia.

She said the cumulative impact is an "important aspect" in the JPC's recommendation for detention.

"The justifications for this recommendation are that urban and suburban development can significantly increase the peak storm-water flows in small watersheds and that large-scale dense development that could lead to downstream flooding will occur in areas which have access to public sewerage."

(The Swabia Creek area will have access to public sewer lines if restrictions on sewage capacity are eliminated through major regional sewer improvements and negotiations with Allentown.)

Borough engineer Paul Kunkel contends that detaining the storm water is not desirable. In a March 11 letter to the JPC, Kunkel said, "Because this development is contiguous with the Swabia Creek, detention of storm water would delay the peak flow from the development to a time closer to the peak flow of the stream itself. Such detention will increase the potential for downstream flooding during periods when thecreek is flowing at its maximum rate of discharge."

Cleaver replied in her letter, "We are concerned that this conclusion may not address two very important issues, namely:

- the probability of additional developments similar to Brookfield within the Swabia Creek basin and in the Little Lehigh Creek basin, and the attendant storm-water impacts;

- the impact of storm-water management decisions for the Swabia on peak flows in the Little Lehigh Creek.

(The Swabia flows into the Little Lehigh about 1 1/2 miles downstream from the proposed Brookfield development.)

Cleaver said the JPC would agree with direct discharge if "it can be shown that the proposed direct discharge of storm water to the Swabia Creek would not significantly increase peak flows either at the point of discharge or downstream either for current conditions or for expected conditions based upon further upstream development."